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Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Currency is a completely free currency conversion app for iPhone and Mac, with no ads, a clean design, and offline functionality. It has support for over 160 currencies, making it an easy to use tool for any international travel.

Earlier this week, we reported that the storage in the new Mac mini is actually modular, meaning that it isn’t soldered to the logic board of the Mac, and ultimately would be user accessible. However, that didn’t necessarily mean it’d be easy for users to upgrade the storage on their own – though that didn’t stop one individual.

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Everywhere you read, discussions around AI everywhere. It’s in the tools we use, the news we read, and the discussions happening across nearly every industry. But with AI so embedded in our conversations, AI fatigue has set in. IT practitioners are becoming weary of promises that AI will revolutionize the world overnight, and skepticism is growing.

OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot ChatGPT is currently down, making the platform inaccessible to users around the world on Friday night. The outage has also affected integration with Siri in the iOS 18.2 beta as a consequence.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

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A new study published this week by researchers at the University of California, San Diego highlights how Apple Vision Pro can be used in healthcare settings. In particular, this study sought to compare diagnostic performance when using Apple Vision Pro versus using a desktop.

Researchers also touted the “new opportunities for 3D virtualization” and ergonomics offered by Apple Vision Pro.

Fernando and Jeff discuss today’s official availability of the M4 Mac mini, including first impressions and planned use cases. Also, why visionOS 2.2 makes the Apple Vision Pro worth buying if you can get one used for a good price.

9to5Mac Overtime is a weekly video-first podcast exploring fun and interesting observations in the Apple ecosystem, featuring 9to5Mac’s Fernando Silva & Jeff Benjamin. Subscribe to Overtime via Apple Podcasts. You can also watch this episode on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more.

TikTok already lets users add a song to their Spotify library without leaving the app, and both platforms are now introducing another quite convenient feature: the ability to easily share Spotify songs on TikTok.

Keeping tabs on battery-powered HomeKit accessories like the Eve Weather can be challenging. From smart locks to motion sensors, battery status is often out of sight, out of mind—until the moment a device fails to respond. Enter HomeBatteries, an app designed to solve this problem by giving you an easy place to monitor HomeKit battery and ensuring you lose access to one of your devices.

Update: A security researcher on Mastodon has cracked the case on this, proving that it has nothing to do with iPhones secretly communicating with each other.

A new report from 404 Media says that law enforcement officials in Detroit, Michigan believe that iOS 18 includes a “new security feature that tells nearby iPhones to reboot if they have been disconnected from a cellular network for some time.”

Apple has been accelerating its focus on gaming in recent years, fueled by the era of M-class Mac chips, booming App Store subscription revenue, and Apple Arcade. But there’s another area of gaming effort you may have missed, and it’s continuing to grow at a steady pace: Apple News Puzzles.

Apple’s key holiday extended return policy has officially started. Apple says that most products received between November 8, 2024 and December 25, 2024 may be returned through January 8, 2025.

Along with the dramatic external design, the new M4 Mac mini also features multiple internal changes. According to early teardowns and user reports, the new Mac mini features a removable SSD. This doesn’t mean, however, that you can buy a new Mac mini and upgrade the storage after the fact.

Apple Intelligence officially launched just weeks ago, and its more exciting new features are coming next month with iOS 18.2—all available cost-free. While many analysts and investors are anxious to see how AI might fuel an uptick of iPhone 16 purchases, this week’s beta release showed another way for Apple to monetize its AI offerings.

The new MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini powered by M4 are officially here. After being announced last week with pre-order availability, Apple’s new M4 Mac lineup can is now available for purchase at Apple Stores around the world.

Here’s everything you need to know about M4 Mac launch day…

According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is working on a significant camera upgrade for the iPhone 18 coming in 2026. The analyst says the iPhone 18’s main rear camera will be upgraded to a variable aperture lens for the first time.

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This week, I want to share a fascinating talk I came across on social media about an Apple service that doesn’t seem to get as much attention in the community: CarPlay. While Apple has not publicly disclosed the exact number of CarPlay users, I’d venture to say it’s one of its most used services. And one of the biggest concerns is anything that could compromise driver safety or privacy. So, how secure is CarPlay?

Pretty much every video streaming platform has DRM-protected content, which aims to prevent users from distributing copyrighted material. Unfortunately, this also means that users can’t easily share screenshots of specific moments of something they’re watching with others – but Netflix is introducing a new feature that will change that.

As previously covered here on 9to5Mac, Denim is a powerful app that provides tools for creating and customizing cover artwork for playlist. Following an update in August that added many new options to the app, Denim is now getting another update – this time with Spotify integration.

Ahead of Black Friday officially kicking off later this month, our friends at GRID are running a huge sale on their popular disassembled tech frames. There are options for Apple and non-Apple fans both.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

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